The present invention relates to wall systems in general, and more particularly to a wall system which has pronounced sound absorbing, heat insulating and fire retarding properties. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a wall system which may be used either as a permanent, a temporary or a slidable partitioning wall.
Various wall systems are well known in the building industry and they have found widespread application. One of the main requirements for such systems is that they have good sound absorbing, heat insulating and fire retarding properties, whether such wall systems are used as permanent parts of the building structure, as dismountable partitions or as slidable partitioning walls. However, these requirements are not fully met even if the wall system is a solid masonry wall made of sound-absorbing and thermally insulating fireproof material; these requirements are even more difficult to meet in relatively thin partitioning wall systems. This results from the fact that the walls are at least partially permeable to sound and/or heat due to the immediate or mediate connection between the two opposite major surfaces of the wall facing the compartments being separated from one another by the wall or, in case of an outside wall, one of the surfaces facing the exterior of the building.
Attempts have already been made to reduce the permeability of wall systems to pentration of sound and heat therethrough by providing a hollow insulating space inside the wall system which effectively separates one wall portion facing one of the compartments from another wall portion facing the other compartment or the exterior of the building. As a result of this arrangement, the heat and sound transmission through the wall system has been significantly reduced since the heat and sound conduction occurs predominantly through connecting portions or elements of the wall which bridge the hollow space and connect the two major wall portions to one another. Since these connecting portions or elements have a relatively small cross-sectional area, the heat and sound conduction therethrough is insignificant when compared to that of a solid wall but not negligible. In fact, the amount of heat and the intensity of sound penetrating through such hollow wall are still substantial. While the temperature drop between two neighboring compartments may be small so that the heat insulating properties of the wall system may not be of real significance in some wall systems, particularly in partitioning wall systems erected inside a building, the problem of sound penetration is to be avoided in such wall systems whether they are used as exterior or as partitioning walls, and particularly in the latter case.
There are also already known wall constructions or systems in which two independently supported wall panels are provided which have neither immediate nor mediate contact with one another. However, these systems have up to now been utilized only for erecting permanent or at most dismountable partitioning or other walls, not for slidable partitioning walls. In addition thereto, all the parts of which the wall system of this type is to be assembled have to be transported separately to the building site. Consequently, the erection of such a wall system requires utilization of highly skilled labor force and involves considerable time expenditure. Consequently, it would be advantageous to mount a pair of wall panels on a shared supporting frame to form a wall element since then the erection of a partitioning wall would only involve arranging a plurality of such wall elements in mutual alignment and interconnecting the same; however, all of the heretofore known wall elements of this type have invariably involved formation of bridges between the two associated panels mounted on the same frame, with attendant deterioration of the sound and heat insulation properties of the wall due to the fact that the two panels are mounted on the same supporting columns or transverse beams which together form the frame.